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Wednesday, August 31, 2016

I made granola the other day and it is delicious. I just pressure cooked a batch of chic peas. I had tomato and onion and olives for dinner on toast with tea. All of these simple things are so extraordinary to me. Is it because I went swimming?

The other night I had to shut all of the windows because my neighbor was using perfumed dryer sheets. Then my other neighbors were smoking cigarettes causing me to have an asthma attack. Sensitivity to scent was not just when I was 5 years old.

When I vacuum I put a drop of mango oil on a tissue and suck it up into the machine making the dirt bag smell better. I do my baking after my laundry and house cleaning so the good smells override the bad.

When I was a kid perfumed and dyed toilet paper was all the rage. My mother bought yellow, pink and blue perfumed toilet paper. At the time I had a pet gerbil named Silky because his fur was so smooth and healthy. Silky scratched his nose every day and I wondered if he had an irritated nose from the perfume. I replaced his bedding with cedar and unscented white tissues and he recovered.

When I was a child living in Larchmont NY my mother would often take us on the commuter train into Manhattan. I would fight my sister for the window seat and press my face against the smelly double glass to see as much as possible. I especially loved Harlem. I examined the boarded up tenements, fire escape windows, clotheslines and people from the moving train, trying to gather as much as possible from this secret world before the big black tunnel. I was fascinated, enthralled and I wanted more. It was a city of miniature tenement houses and we were speeding by from a high and all too safe vantage point.

After we arrived in Grand Central Station I would take in the dark oily machine smell of the train tracks and the sparkles in the platform. The smell of newspapers. The sounds that echoed. The cold air. Everyone was rushing. For me New York City was all about scent. The smell of black vinyl in taxi cabs, roasted chestnuts on street corners; New York City was an amusement park for my nose.

We would be all dressed up to visit to my step-father's gigantic midtown office. There was a switch board operator and lots of cool posters on the wall and a row of men at drafting tables. There was a distinctive comforting smell of ink and new paper, the same one that is in my office today.

I realized the other day that I now live in this very neighborhood, in the doll house tenement city I spotted from the moving train. I still look up at the windows and fire escapes but now I live here. I talk to my neighbors, walk with them, share bread with them and know their names.

I’m happy to have a body that is healthy, that gets me where I want to go.

What matters most is the work. Does it give you pleasure, or hope? Does it sustain your soul? My work as a climate activist is the hardest and most fascinating I’ve ever done. I’m too old for the dark forces, for hopelessness and despair.

Dominique Browning is the senior director of Moms Clean Air Force. She blogs at slowlovelife.com.

It's the birthday of Maria Montessori (books by this author), born on this day in Chiaravalle, Italy (1870). She was a bright student, studied engineering when she was 13, and — against her father's wishes — she entered a technical school, where all her classmates were boys. After a few years, she decided to pursue medicine, and she became the first woman in Italy to earn a medical degree. It was so unheard of for a woman to go to medical school that she had to get the approval of the pope in order to study there.

As a doctor, she worked with children with special needs, and through her work with them she became increasingly interested in education. She believed that children were not blank slates, but that they each had inherent, individual gifts. It was a teacher's job to help children find these gifts, rather than dictating what a child should know. She emphasized independence, self-directed learning, and learning from peers. Children were encouraged to make decisions. She was the first educator to use child-sized tables and chairs in the classroom.

During World War II, Montessori was exiled from Italy because she was opposed to Mussolini's fascism and his desire to make her a figurehead for the Italian government. She lived and worked in India for many years, and then in Holland. She died in 1952 at the age of 81.

She wrote many books about her philosophy of education, including The Montessori Method (1912), and is considered a major innovator in education theory and practice.

Today is the birthday of William Shawn, the longtime editor of The New Yorker, born William Chon in Chicago (1907). He started working for The New Yorker as a reporter for the "Talk of the Town" section in 1933, and was paid $2 per column inch. He took on some editorial duties after a few years as a writer, and became managing editor in 1939. He convinced the magazine's founder, Harold Ross, to devote an entire issue to John Hersey's in-depth coverage of six survivors of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. It was radically different than the magazine's usual fare, but it was a huge success. When Ross's health began to go downhill in the early 1950s, he bequeathed the magazine to Shawn. Some people were skeptical that Shawn could pull it off; after all, he was a Midwestern boy, raised in Chicago and educated in Michigan, and his first real journalism job had been reporting for a small paper in Las Vegas, New Mexico. He didn't like a fast-paced lifestyle, crowds, elevators, or power lunches. He was a small, shy, extremely courteous man whose feet didn't reach the floor under his desk. Ross died of cancer late in 1951, and Shawn succeeded him a couple of months later; he held the position until 1987, when the sale of the magazine forced him into retirement.

Under Ross's leadership, The New Yorker had been a forum for sparkling wit and snarky gossip; its stable of writers included E.B. White, James Thurber, and many members of the Algonquin Round Table. When Shawn took over the helm, the magazine took a more serious turn. It featured more stories of national interest and toned down its New York focus. Tom Wolfe said, in 1965, that Shawn had turned The New Yorker into "the most successful suburban women's magazine in the country." Former New Yorker writer Dorothy Parker complained that most of the writing was "about somebody's childhood in Pakistan," and even Shawn himself sometimes regretted the decline in the amount of humor in the magazine's pages under his watch.

But he had the support of the magazine's owners, and throughout his career, he earned the admiration and affection of the writers he worked with: among them J.D. Salinger, John Updike, Jamaica Kincaid, Elizabeth Bishop, and Philip Roth. He published Truman Capote's In Cold Blood as a series of articles. His magazine began to shape public opinion rather than just remark upon it. It was in the pages of Shawn's magazine that Rachel Carson's Silent Spring first educated Americans about the environment, and James Baldwin published essays on race relations that would eventually become his book The Fire Next Time (1963).

When the magazine was sold and Shawn was forced to retire in 1987, he wrote a last letter to his colleagues, saying, "We have built something quite wonderful together." After his death in 1992, former colleague Gardner Botsford wrote in The New Yorker: "He sharpened our thinking, brought us sternly back from our vacant musings, oiled our transitions, and turned us into professionals of a greater competence than we would ever have achieved on our own." Another New Yorker staffer said, anonymously, "No editor ever ruled a large and complex magazine as absolutely as he ruled this one; yet no editor, perhaps, ever imparted to so many writers and artists as powerful a sense of freedom and possibility."

Shawn himself once said, "Falling short of perfection is a process that just never stops."

She knew something was up when she saw Mildred's clothesline. There were large gaps between the towels and shirts and dresses. In all the years she's been Millie's neighbor, that was never the case.

Her intuition said "Get over there." She stepped out and walked down the flagstone walkway and into Millie's garden and rang the big brass dinner-bell. No answer. She looked in the back kitchen window and saw nothing awry. The table had a teacup and saucer and a white pitcher of pussy-willows. She glanced down to the left and saw bare ankles, motionless and slightly blue.

Dr. Kellogg wanted to keep his cereals sugar-free — he was a Seventh-day Adventist who famously advocated against alcohol, meat, sugar, tobacco and sexual activity. But his brother, Will, insisted on sweetening them, and the two parted ways. Will went on to launch the Kellogg Company, and its enormously popular sweet cereals, which eventually included Froot Loops and Cocoa Krispies.Article

A command center or command centre (often called a war room) is any place that is used to provide centralized command for some purpose.

While frequently considered to be a military facility, these can be used in many other cases by governments or businesses. The term "war room" is also often used in politics to refer to teams of communications people who monitor and listen to the media and the public, respond to inquiries, and synthesize opinions to determine the best course of action.

A command center enables an organization to function as designed, to perform day-to-day operations regardless of what is happening around it, in a manner in which no one realizes it is there but everyone knows who is in charge when there is trouble.

Conceptually, a command center is a source of leadership and guidance to ensure that service and order is maintained, rather than an information center or help desk. Its tasks are achieved by monitoring the environment and reacting to events, from the relatively harmless to a major crisis, using predefined procedures.

Living well isn't about money. Living well is about a zest for life and conscious attention to what's going on between your ears. It's also about community, good books, playing music, swimming, baking, writing letters, and enjoying fresh local vegetables.

I read recently that ears are being use as identifiers when fingerprints are less reliable. This might sound strange but I have a card catalog visual memory for ears (and fingers and toes) of the people I know.

Siam is set to release its new Siam 7X smartphone, which features biometric earprint authentication technology, according to a report by Pocket-lint. Using the Descartes Biometrics Helix solution, the smartphone’s front-facing camera is able to authenticate the user based on his or her unique ear features when the device is held to it. This allows the owner to configure the smartphone so that he or she is the only individual authorized to make and receive calls by holding the handset

I know too many people who are trying to out run their own shadow. It is tragic. Quite a few are in my own family my own band and my own neighborhood. Either you stop and sit down with your demon and invite him in for tea and listen or you will be guaranteed to have a dreadful life of running. Put your head in the demon's mouth and listen to his pain.

I have a theory that the folks who won't submit to this experiment are actually too afraid to give up their fist clenching control.

There was a fat gray cat on my bed and he had no ears. His ear holes were still there but the ears had been removed. He was actually light blue and definitely male, I checked. I had never seen a light blue cat before. He had human teeth, white molars in good shape. How did he get in my house? Who took off his ears? Was he friends with my cat Sammy? Was he living here all this time and eating Sammy's food? Was someone missing him. I heard a banging at my door. I woke up.

I love the art of acting, and I love film, because you always have another chance if you want it. You know, if we - if this isn't going well, you can't say - well, you could say - let's stop. Let's start over again, Gene, because you were too nervous.
- Gene Wilder

I like writing books. I'd rather be at home with my wife. I can write, take a break, come out, have a glass of tea, give my wife a kiss, and go back in and write some more. It's not so bad. I am really lucky.
- Gene Wilder

My mother was suffering every day of her life, and what right did I have to be happy if she was suffering? So whenever I got happy about something, I felt the need to cut it off, and the only way to cut it off was to pray. 'Forgive me Lord.' For what, I didn't know.
- Gene Wilder

“I never thought of it as God. I didn't know what to call it. I don't believe in devils, but demons I do because everyone at one time or another has some kind of a demon, even if you call it by another name, that drives them.”
― Gene Wilder

“Climbing hills was never one of my great ambitions. Perhaps I was just lazy, but I admit--now that I've been climbing a hill every other day--that it's very difficult to think about the stresses in your life while you're trying to avoid falling backwards when a goat with large horns is chasing you because you came too close to the little patch of grass he was planning to eat for breakfast.”
― Gene Wilder, The Woman Who Wouldn't

“If the physical thing you're doing is funny, you don't have to act funny while doing it...Just be real and it will be funnier”
― Gene Wilder, Kiss Me Like a Stranger: My Search for Love and Art

“What do actors really want? To be great actors? Yes, but you can’t buy talent, so it’s best to leave the word ‘great’ out of it. I think to be believed, onstage or onscreen, is the one hope that all actors share.”Article

I certainly sensed at some point that I was already in the afterlife, since my existence could have easily ended long ago
[...]

In looking back from this immanent afterlife on my earlier terrors, and how they have been slowly buried over time, I see now that they were overly fixated on my own biological death. Since I recognized eternal transcendence as nothing more than a comforting illusion, the only thing left was my finite life in the here and now, which was destined to disappear forever in an instantaneous blackout.

It is now patently unclear to me, however, that we ever actually die in this way. Our existence has numerous dimensions, and they each live according to different times. The biological stratum, which I naïvely took to mean life in general, is in certain ways a long process of demise — we are all dying all the time, just at different rhythms. Far from being an ultimate horizon beyond the bend, death is a constitutive feature of the unfolding of biological life. In other words, I am confronting my death each day that I live.
[...]

If biological death appears to some as an endpoint to existence, there is nevertheless a longevity to our physical, artifactual and psychosocial lives. They intertwine and merge with the broader world out of which we are woven. This should not be taken as a form of spiritualist consolation, however, but rather as an invitation to face up to the ways in which our immanent lives are actually never simply our own.

Source
Gabriel Rockhill is an associate professor of philosophy at Villanova University and founding director of the Atelier de Théorie Critique at the Sorbonne in Paris. He is the author of several books, including, most recently, “Interventions in Contemporary Thought: History, Politics, Aesthetics.”

I had a sneezing fit this morning. It was so intense I had to sit down so I wouldn't be knocked over by the force. I was suddenly reminded of my mother who always held in her sneezes. This would make a horrible gnunk sound and was disgusting to me as a child.

This morning I learned that iguanas sneeze the most and plucking your eyebrows causes sneezing in some people. Something I have never attempted.

This is what I call whoosh season or the undertow season. Things won't slow down until November first and then they stagnate until January 4th or so.

Everything has to happen now before the big slowdown.

I have fabric that is begging to become new curtains and or a blouse.

I have injured my back ten days ago but the daily hot baths and swims are still the cure and walking helps too. Time is a healer. As long as I am not sitting in a chair or car I feel no pain.

Bill had been washing 8 pounds of kalamata olives in overnight baths of water and now re-brining them is salt water. We went to the Restaurant Depot in Cranston for olives and the ones we got had not been properly processed. They tasted like dish soap. We read up on the solution to the problem and it worked. I hope to go back to the depot again someday if nothing else just to fondle the wheels of cheese and buy a boat load of asparagus.

“The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, nor to worry about the future, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly.”
― Gautama Buddha

“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection”
― Gautama Buddha

“In the end
these things matter most:
How well did you love?
How fully did you live?
How deeply did you let go?”
― Gautama Buddha

“However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act on upon them?”
― Gautama Buddha

“There is nothing more dreadful than the habit of doubt. Doubt separates people. It is a poison that disintegrates friendships and breaks up pleasant relations. It is a thorn that irritates and hurts; it is a sword that kills.”
― Gautama Buddha

“You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”
― Gautama Buddha

“All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts and made up of our thoughts. If a man speak or act with an evil thought, suffering follows him as the wheel follows the hoof of the beast that draws the wagon.... If a man speak or act with a good thought, happiness follows him like a shadow that never leaves him.”
― Gautama Buddha

“No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.”
― Gautama Buddha, Sayings Of Buddha

“Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.”
― Gautama Buddha

“You only lose what you cling to.”
― Gautama Buddha

“Three things can not hide for long: the Moon, the Sun and the Truth.”
― Gautama Buddha

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”
― Gautama Buddha

“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.”
― Gautama Buddha

“Doubt everything. Find your own light.”
― Gautama Buddha

“Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful.”
― Gautama Buddha

“Every morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most.”
― Gautama Buddha

“Your purpose in life is to find your purpose and give your whole heart and soul to it”
― Gautama Buddha

“There is no path to happiness: happiness is the path.”
― Gautama Buddha

“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.”
― Gautama Buddha

“If you truly loved yourself, you could never hurt another.”
― Gautama Buddha

“A man is not called wise because he talks and talks again; but if he is peaceful, loving and fearless then he is in truth called wise.”
― Gautama Buddha, The Dhammapada: The Sayings of the Buddha

“You will not be punished for your anger; you will be punished by your anger.”
― Gautama Buddha

“If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.”
― Gautama Buddha

“Now, Kalamas, don’t go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, ‘This contemplative is our teacher.’ When you know for yourselves that, ‘These qualities are skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to welfare & to happiness’ — then you should enter & remain in them.

[Kalama Sutta, AN 3.65]”
― Gautama Buddha

“It is like a lighted torch whose flame can be distributed to ever so many other torches which people may bring along; and therewith they will cook food and dispel darkness, while the original torch itself remains burning ever the same. It is even so with the bliss of the Way.

[Sutra of 42 Sections]”
― Gautama Buddha

“Pain is certain, suffering is optional.”
― Gautama Buddha

“Greater in battle
than the man who would conquer
a thousand-thousand men,
is he who would conquer
just one —
himself.
Better to conquer yourself
than others.
When you've trained yourself,
living in constant self-control,
neither a deva nor gandhabba,
nor a Mara banded with Brahmas,
could turn that triumph
back into defeat.”
― Gautama Buddha

“An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind.”
― Gautama Buddha

“Whatever a monk keeps pursuing with his thinking and pondering, that becomes the inclination of his awareness.”
― Gautama Buddha

“Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.”
― Gautama Buddha

It's the birthday of the man who said, "The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts": British philosopher John Locke (books by this author), born in Wrington, Somerset, England (1632). He believed all of our knowledge is derived from the senses. He also believed that we can know about morality with the same precision we know about math, because we create our ideas. His Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1688) was an instant success and sparked debate all across Europe.

Locke said, "Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours."

It's the birthday of the man who said, "Love is the master-key that opens the gates of happiness, of hatred, of jealousy, and, most easily of all, the gate of fear. How terrible is the one fact of beauty!" That's 19th-century poet and physician Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (books by this author), born in Cambridge, Massachusetts (1809).

He ran in the same circles as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and other Boston intellectuals. He helped found The Atlantic Monthly magazine in 1857, and it was Holmes himself who came up with the name. He published his poetry and articles in The Atlantic Monthly at the same time he practiced medicine and taught at Harvard Medical School. He's also the father of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

He's perhaps best-known for his essays that make up the "Breakfast Table" series. In The Poet at the Breakfast Table (1872) he wrote, "We are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe; the record may seem superficial, but it is indelible."

He said: "Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked. Good mental machinery ought to break its own wheels and levers, if anything is thrust among them suddenly which tends to stop them or reverse their motion. A weak mind does not accumulate force enough to hurt itself; stupidity often saves a man from going mad."

Sunday, August 28, 2016

I want to be there to experience what I’m experiencing. When I go out dancing I want to hear the music, I want to see people’s outfits, I want to be in the moment, not floating above it and unable to process anything about it the next day.
-Madison Mooresource

It's a family story that my Grandpa Nat was fined for wearing a bathing suit with two circles cut out under the arms. That was considered indecent exposure. We have this photo of grandma and grandpa on Brighton beach as a young couple.
This article and photos are amazing.

Saturday, August 27, 2016

So my friend Phil is telling me how
he can’t get a date
how he loves women and how
they’re always giving him looks
so I ask him what kind of looks
so he winces at the beautiful
braless young woman passing by
at that particular propitious moment
giving her a look of such
longing and longevity
that she returns his look with a look
that kills his entire family tree
from the roots to the unimagined
blossoms of the great grandchildren shriveling
on his shriveling bough
and I think I’ve diagnosed his problem now
and I think of quoting some lines from Rilke
but on second thought I think
a sports metaphor might serve him better
so I steer the conversation round to basketball
and the three second rule
which says you can only stand inside
the key for three seconds
before they blow the whistle
they’re just blowing the whistle on you Phil
for breaking the three second rule
for standing there with your eyes
popping out like basketballs
it’s a game like any other I tell him
then I ask him if he wants to score
and now that I have his attention
I throw in those lines from Rilke
I tell him that beauty is nothing
but the beginning of terror
we’re still just able to bear
and the reason we adore it so
is that it serenely disdains to destroy us
and he winces again and this time
it’s at the beauty of those lines
or maybe their truth which hits him
like a three-pointer now
that Rilke hits all the way from Germany
at a distance of a hundred years

So I try not to evaluate my experience by how it affected me. Instead, I evaluate it by how it affects the way I treat those around me. More than anything, I now understand what it’s like to go through something you can’t fully grasp. When somebody explains the intangible, but lingering, weight they feel as a result of tragedy, I actually know what this weight feels like.

When I look at my friends now, I don’t see what they can do for me or how they can make my life better. Instead, I see how I can make them feel appreciated and less alone. I can’t pretend to know what everybody is going through at all times, and I can’t pretend to know what I’m going through either, but at least I can help them carry that weight, so that one day they may say that they really are better off.

He used to tell me how many days and hours he's been clean and sober. So I always cheered him on. He had a girlfriend who took pills and threatened to kill herself (long distance over the phone).

He said he had a great mother but big big big problems with his father. I gave him my orange fleece scarf one zero degree day. He was outside in his Statue of Liberty "Liberty Tax" costume waving at the one way traffic downtown.

Chief, Linda, Mike, and Sylvia were at my house for lunch yesterday. Wendy showed up for lunch but missed the first shift. We had a neighborhood summit.

Later, when Wendy told me she had been robbed by a kid she trusted and liked a lot I had no idea it was Nick.

So sad. When mental health issues like bipolar or whatever get mixed with the big scary drugs it's TRAGIC. This was a very likeable kid and Wendy felt the same way.

What was that movie with Susan Sarandon trying to save the boy Sean Penn who is on death row?
Dead Man Walking.

Anyway I hope he gets a great lawyer and more chances at rehab. This kid would die being kept in a cage. As Wendy said He's crying out for help.

My husband had no idea how much it was going to mean to restore our rotted boards from our 21 year old picnic table. All of a sudden I had a social life. And believe me as a home body, urban farmer I worry about these things endlessly. I am the black sheep of the family living in the black sheep city, in the black sheep neighborhood. I love to cook and bake and feed. Are there any takers? I don't know how else to sell myself to people and I am easily HURT. Guess what, everyone is.

I finally I realized it was time to stop calling on the same old naysayers and ask a new people. I started with Joe Garlick of Neighborworks, and guess what? He said YES. Come for lunch I said. Just bring your appetite. But he loves to cook and feed as much as I do and so he made Thai salad, chocolate cake and oh my god it was fantastic.
I had picked a weekday at noon and nobody was expected to bring anything or linger. After all it's a workday for everyone. "Come to my backyard picnic table" I said. "Look for the red and yellow beach umbrella!"
We did it again and again and yesterday I had a crowd. And I am so HAPPY. I hope to do it for the rest of my capable days.

I learned from my parents how to express love and gratitude through food. I still get very excited and nervous a week in advance, and then a jolt of adrenaline when people arrive. I am thrilled out of my mind!

My husband and I did all of the marinating baking and cooking in advance so we could attend our own lunch summit to discuss the neighborhood in our beloved neighborhood. My husband worried about the shrubs and went out and trimmed them. Then he grilled all of the vegetables I had sliced up in advance: yams, beets, eggplant, and then he grilled the boneless chicken breasts I had marinated the night before in molasses, hot sauce, mustard, fresh ginger, fresh garlic and wine vinegar. He grilled on the Weber over hardwood charcoal. The flavors bloom when they rest and then get refrigerated overnight after they've cooked and cooled. Then just before the lunch I sliced the chicken into slivers. I set out the sourdough to rise at 7 AM and they puffed up, I baked them at 10AM so they would cool off in time.

Since I am a person who gets stomach aches when in a group it is a challenge for me to eat at meetings. I don't drink either and I get insanely jittery. So it's just like a musical performance gig. I lose my appetite at those too! I calm down the next day or three days later. It's how I'm built.

I still love to knit the community together through the things I love; walking, writing, and feeding good home food at my table.

Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. She accepted the award, but asked that they cancel the gala dinner and donate the money to charity. The committee asked her what people should do to promote peace and she answered, “Go home and love your family.”

Thursday, August 25, 2016

“Language is the element of definition, the defining and descriptive incantation. It puts the coin between our teeth. It whistles the boat up. It shows us the city of light across the water.

Without language there is no poetry, without poetry there’s just talk. Talk is cheap and proves nothing. Poetry is dear and difficult to come by. But it poles us across the river and puts music in our ears.”

In the end, it's about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It's about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Getting happy.”

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

My dog Lily started barking which is rare for her. I went to see what was up. Two of the five nine year old boys with squirt guns came into the yard to get water from my hose. I asked them to please leave the yard and they did. I thanked them. Then they asked me to please fill their squirt guns. I agreed and took the five day glow green and orange machine guns one at a time filling them up and handing them back to them. They were heavy! Then I shut the door and resumed working. They rang the bell and asked for more water and I refilled their squirt guns. They rang again, and again. Okay this is the last time because I have to get back to what I was doing. What are you doing? Cooking, I said. What are you cooking? Beets. They are good kids, I love them but they just need some clarity and boundaries and so do I.

Last night the bowl of tomatoes were ripening before my eyes. I sliced them up and chopped a green cabbage into shreds. Then I made a mason jar full of buttermilk dressing with low-fat buttermilk, garlic dill kosher salt extra virgin olive oil and red wine vinegar and sriracha sauce and mustard. I ate it for breakfast too!
My husband said, "I've never seen anyone love vegetables as much as you do, you love every one of them even more than fruits or meat."

Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Acting is not about being someone different. It’s finding the similarity in what is apparently different, then finding myself in there.
― Meryl Streep

I think the best role models for women are people who are fruitfully and confidently themselves, who bring light into the world.
― Meryl Streep

Put blinders on to those things that conspire to hold you back, especially the ones in your own head.
― Meryl Streep

The formula of happiness and success is just, being actually yourself, in the most vivid possible way you can.
― Meryl Streep

I no longer have patience for certain things, not because I’ve become arrogant, but simply because I reached a point in my life where I do not want to waste more time with what displeases me or hurts me. I have no patience for cynicism, excessive criticism and demands of any nature. I lost the will to please those who do not like me, to love those who do not love me and to smile at those who do not want to smile at me. I no longer spend a single minute on those who lie or want to manipulate. I decided not to coexist anymore with pretense, hypocrisy, dishonesty and cheap praise. I do not tolerate selective erudition nor academic arrogance. I do not adjust either to popular gossiping. I hate conflict and comparisons. I believe in a world of opposites and that’s why I avoid people with rigid and inflexible personalities. In friendship I dislike the lack of loyalty and betrayal. I do not get along with those who do not know how to give a compliment or a word of encouragement. Exaggerations bore me and I have difficulty accepting those who do not like animals. And on top of everything I have no patience for anyone who does not deserve my patience.
― Meryl Streep

I like who I am now. Other people may not. I'm comfortable. I feel freer now. I don't want growing older to matter to me.
― Meryl Streep

No one has ever asked an actor, 'You're playing a strong-minded man…' We assume that men are strong-minded, or have opinions. But a strong-minded woman is a different animal.
― Meryl Streep

Here
Don’t just grow older, take charge and age boldly! Taking Charge: Collected Stories on Aging Boldly is a collection of newspaper columns by Herb Weiss, an award winning journalist whose body of work is a treasury of well-researched stories and insightful interviews with experts and everyday people who have shared their observations about growing older.

Taking Charge covers a myriad of aging issues ranging from care giving and retirement planning to thoughts about spirituality and death. Through these stories, readers are empowered with practical tools to live a happy, engaged and empowered second half of life.

I've been reflecting a lot about inspiration. I love the dual definition: being stimulated to do something, especially something creative, and taking in the air we need to live. Inspiration from within and without. Like plants; on the days water isn't falling onto us, we find another way to get it.

Before winter I hope to swim in the ocean and make hand-cranked ice cream. I don't even like ice cream (as much as I like broccoli or corn or grilled turkey breast) but I love my antique ice-cream maker! If I was really daring (and rich) I'd get a komodo (Big Green Egg) and make smoked turkey all year round.

Our shrubs grow like hair. This morning my husband is out there trimming like mad. Some weeds have grown into trees and he's sawing them down. Nothing like visitors coming to get us to see things with new eyes. Also this is our last blast before the school year begins.

See above. Norman Mailer said, “Writer’s block is a failure of the ego.” And Ray Bradbury: “Start doing more. It’ll get rid of all those moods you’re having!” When you think you’re blocked, you’re not. You just need to take a long walk and let your story figure itself out again so you can sit back down and write it. Good writing should be “automatic writing.”

What’s your advice to new writers?

Don’t confuse writing with rewriting. If you try to do both at the same time, you’ll sabotage yourself. Rewriting is what you start doing when you’ve completed your first draft. Good luck to you all.

Former professor Ken Atchity is a writer (of novels and nonfiction), producer of films for television and theater, literary manager, and publisher (Story Merchant Books). He can be reached at atchity@storymerchant.com.

I recently learned that tobacco is very helpful for folks who are schizophrenic. My neighbor Kyle's daily routine is walking around this 4 block area picking up cigarette butts to smoke. He goes to Walgreen's parking lot where smokers end their cigs to pop in the store and he hunts the abandoned butts down. My friend T and I want to help him out by planting cigs on his path so he still gets to hunt because that's his daily enjoyment. He goes by my house 18 times a day. Most people are scared of him but I tell them he's harmless and I explain the situation.

Acupuncture involves the insertion of extremely thin needles through your skin at strategic points on your body. A key component of traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture is most commonly used to treat pain.

Traditional Chinese medicine explains acupuncture as a technique for balancing the flow of energy or life force — known as qi or chi (CHEE) — believed to flow through pathways (meridians) in your body. By inserting needles into specific points along these meridians, acupuncture practitioners believe that your energy flow will re-balance.

In contrast, many Western practitioners view the acupuncture points as places to stimulate nerves, muscles and connective tissue. Some believe that this stimulation boosts your body's natural painkillers and increases blood flow.

When we can eat delicious home-cooked meals, spinach and arugula salads, with red onions, red peppers, farm fresh tomatoes, late summer local corn,local cucumbers, we are all equal. We are all happy. This is what life is about. Now get out the banjo and accordion and play some fresh local live music!

I looked up and noticed rainbow flags and Puerto Rican Flag on the very top of the triple decker on my street. The rainbow flags had the planned Parenthood logo. COOL! I had to find out what this was about.

I hear the Brazilian music particularly the singing and accordion with a tuba and my neighbor, a beautiful young Brazilian woman is singing along, belting it out. On most afternoons delicious culinary aromas waft out of their apartment. She knows whats important; a walk in the park with her baby in the morning and cooking delicious meals for her husband the roofer in the afternoon.

My definition of a rollover dream is a dream at dawn when I am rolling over.

Dream: I was somewhere and I had to pee but I let another person go first. When it was my turn I let it rip before I realized the toilet seat was closed. I flooded the nearby rugs with urine. Then I had a big problem. I had to find the hostess and tell her what I had done and offer to clean everything right away.

Dream: I was in grad school and I hated it. I was not doing my assignments. I walked out on my third class knowing I had ignored the first two classes. I needed a lift home.

Woonsocket is MAKING it HAPPEN. We are on the verge of a fantastic blast off. Fasten your seat belts. We have the park, the train is coming and the rest is already in place. Thanks to our great Mayor Lisa Baldelli Hunt and her stellar team, Woonsocket Rocks!

Last night we had a picnic supper I made a quick dressing in a mason jar: buttermilk, olive oil, sriracha sauce, mustard, dill weed, garlic, red wine vinegar and salt. We ate spinach and arugula and a batch of fresh tomatoes from The Big Apple farm in Wrentham, oil cured olives, and a blob of goat cheese. We hung the little red lantern from the umbrella to barely light our plates. It was dark but there were no bugs. Lily sat with us. It was lovely.

Wanderer, your footsteps are the road, and nothing more; wanderer, there is no road, the road is made by walking. By walking one makes the road, and upon glancing behind one sees the path that never will be trod again. Wanderer, there is no road-- Only wakes upon the sea.

Sunday, August 21, 2016

This is my first attempt at sonar. I write because I am often lonely and I love the company of words. Words are little sparks of sound with meaning, each with an ancestral heritage of its own. I write because it’s how I feel my way through the dark. Words are my path of bread crumbs which may lead me out of the forest or in deeper.

I would like to remain a ticklish dolphin well into my old age, swimming in the underwater sun patches at my local YMCA pool. I love to see the ancient ladies methodically swimming laps, flowing through the turquoise tinted water. Just to be near them is equal to being fed chicken soup by five grandmothers. These ladies swim daily. Some have translucent skin with blue and green veins, bruises, scars, and brittle bones. They all have rosy cheeks and hearty laughs. They are beautiful. This is the chlorinated community church of the underwater aqua mamas.

Life is not the thing that begins after you ban leaf blowers and clear away junk mail. Life includes all the things that come along including fear and centipedes. Life is now. I tell myself; swim, write, paint, play your horn, cultivate courage in spite of fear, celebrate absurdity, imagination, and have fun. Laugh and learn. Find out who you are. What else are we here for?

Sometimes I wake at 4 am, and I mix up a batch of sourdough and realize the mailmen and milkmen are already beginning their day and my musician friends are just getting to sleep, and I am upside down from the perspective of those living on the other side of the planet.

When I was a kid my mother took me to MILLER'S TOY STORE in Mamaroneck N.Y. and asked what I wanted for Christmas and my birthday 12/27. "I want a carrying case record player like Cynthia has," I said. "And for my birthday I want to go ice-skating in Rockefeller Center!"

My mother had other ideas. She felt if ever I got what I wanted I'd become spoiled. So every year she asked me but she gave me the same thing, magic markers and a drawing pad and a men's sweater.

"You were named after Emily Dickinson, she stayed in her room until she died. Then, after her death they found the poems," my sister said, in on the plan. I cried. This was the picture laid out for me. But I wanted to be a Broadway dancer in musicals or a skater like Peggy Flemming or a gymnast like Olga Korbut. Not some sick girl locked in her room.

I have been wanting to make pancakes for three weeks. This morning I was just about to mix up the buckwheat batter when a voice said. Oh just make toast, faggheddaboud it, it's fast and easy. And I said to myself no. no. no. I've had this argument with myself for weeks. I can have pancakes.

I made a batch of buckwheat pancakes from Bob's Redmill recipe on the flour bag using my sourdough starter. They came out great. My husband and I enjoyed them with currant jam and honey.

You are allowed to have your dreams.

I've discovered that I don't become spoiled at all, in fact I am filled with gratitude and happiness.

Good listeners are no less rare or important than good communicators. Here, too, an unusual degree of confidence is the key — a capacity not to be thrown off course by, or buckle under the weight of, information that may deeply challenge certain settled assumptions. Good listeners are unfussy about the chaos which others may for a time create in their minds; they’ve been there before and know that everything can eventually be set back in its place.source

Its that magic time of year: late August. The Histamine High, as my doctor called it. The RI Ragweed allergy season is intense and if I don't ingest antihistamines decongestants and lots of coffee and take my puffer, my asthma inhaler I am doubled over in gastrointestinal agony. So I ride the wave for a few weeks until it's over. Once again swimming and writing are important daily grounding forces.
Yesterday we played the Looff Arts Festival and it was one of our greatest gigs ever. I had tweaked my back the night before from sitting 14 hours at a stretch at Bill's computer. I was walking like a 101 year old lady. I was very worried about how I would dance and parade while playing my saxophone. The show must go on, I told myself. So I gently stretched and swam in the local pool, and took ibuprophen. I read that walking was helpful so I walked my dog as usual. Then showtime arrived and the magic took over. Trust the magic!

To me, a leader is someone who holds her- or himself accountable for finding potential in people and processes. And so what I think is really important is sustainability.
Brene Brown

When you get to a place where you understand that love and belonging, your worthiness, is a birthright and not something you have to earn, anything is possible.
Brene Brown

The truth is: Belonging starts with self-acceptance. Your level of belonging, in fact, can never be greater than your level of self-acceptance, because believing that you're enough is what gives you the courage to be authentic, vulnerable and imperfect.
Brene Brown

In my research, I’ve interviewed a lot of people who never fit in, who are what you might call ‘different': scientists, artists, thinkers. And if you drop down deep into their work and who they are, there is a tremendous amount of self-acceptance.
Brené Brown

I hesitate to use a pathologizing label, but underneath the so-called narcissistic personality is definitely shame and the paralyzing fear of being ordinary.
Brene Brown

Shame is the most powerful, master emotion. It's the fear that we're not good enough.
Brene Brown

In order for the scapegoat to have a family he has to perpetuate the myth that any day now he will be accepted. So he is complicit in his own demise. The role has been assigned. The karmic door is sealed and locked. The solution is to examine the myth closely and psychically retool your role for yourself. There's no hope for the family.

This morning on our downtown walk we saw the police doing something that looked like and archeological dig in front of headquarters. We crossed the street to get closer. They were putting up the Police Union Monument that has been moved from Hamlet Ave and Cumberland Hill Road intersection. It was fascinating to watch the granite slabs being placed with wedges, levels and putty. All of the retired detectives stood under the blue tent wearing their leather holsters, watching and discussing the procedure.

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that a spring was breaking
out in my heart.
I said: Along which secret aqueduct,
Oh water, are you coming to me,
water of a new life
that I have never drunk?

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that a fiery sun was giving
light inside my heart.
It was fiery because I felt
warmth as from a hearth,
and sun because it gave light
and brought tears to my eyes.

Last night as I slept,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that it was God I had
here inside my heart. ”
― Antonio Machado

To whatever extent possible, try to get up and move as much as possible. For example, this could mean a day of mainly rest, followed by a day that includes several short walks around the house, followed by a day with a short walk every hour or half hour, or longer walks as tolerated. Prolonged inactivity will stiffen your muscles and will likely lead to more pain. In general, walking is gentle on your back and promotes blood flow, which in turn helps speeds the healing process.article

Are earprints the new fingerprints?
A technology developed by researchers in the United Kingdom uses a shape-finding algorithm to identify people via an unlikely source: their ears.
April 30, 2014
Are our ears as unique as our fingerprints?
That’s what UK scientists are trying to figure out. Researchers at the University of Southampton developed a new shape-finding algorithm that is 99.6 percent accurate for identifying a person. According to researchers, this new “image-ray-transform” process could be the world’s most accurate and least invasive way to identify people.

New technology
Fingerprints have long been used by government agencies to identify people. The United States FBI database alone holds 70 million fingerprints of criminals. But fingerprinting isn’t an exact science. Fingertips can be damaged with calluses, and fingerprints can rub off over time.

Iris scanning is also difficult, since the eye is such a small target and subject to fraud – it is even possible to use a hi-res image of an eye, rather than an actual eyeball, to fool the machine.

With these disadvantages in mind, scientists at the University of Southampton in the UK worked to develop a new technology that would be able to identify someone via a part of the body that barely ever changes: the ear.

“When you’re born your ear is fully formed. The lobe descends a little, but overall it stays the same. It’s a great way to identify people,” Mark Nixon, the leader of the research, told Wired Magazine.

How it works
According to Wired Magazine, ear identification uses computer vision to convert human features into IDs. Researchers in Southampton used this technology to create an “image-ray-transform” algorithm that can identify an ear with 99.6 percent accuracy.

The ray-producing algorithm looks for curved features in the ear. After the rays have found every part of the ear, another program turns these curves into a unique set of numbers – basically an “ear ID.”

Ups and downs
Like all technology, there are positives and negatives to using ears to identify people. Like iris scans, ear identification systems have limitations like hair covering the ears, difficult lighting conditions, and different IDs generated by different angles. For this reason, researchers stress that using the ear isn’t about replacing existing biometrics like fingerprints – but rather supplementing those technologies with another ID system.

Research into ear identification systems is still in its infancy, but as it gets quicker or more accurate, it could be used in many situations – like when a security camera grabs a profile view of a man robbing a bank. As Nixon told Wired Magazine:

“We’ve shown we can use ears, but can we process the data that comes from a sort of normal scenario? That’s the real challenge.”

More information
“Ears could make better unique IDs than fingerprints”
- Wired Magazine, November 2011

“Southampton scientists develop new method to identify people by their ears”
- University of Southampton, October 2010

I have always lived on waterfronts. If you live on the edge of an enormous mountain or an enormous body of water, it's harder to think of yourself as being so important. That seems useful to me, spiritually.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
An ordinary multifunction stud finder, as available in hardware stores
Stud finder that utilizes a moving magnetic piston to locate studs under sheetrock, plaster or tile. Will also locate steel studs.

A stud finder (also stud detector or stud sensor) is a handheld device used to locate framing studs located behind the final walling surface, usually drywall. While there are many different stud finders available, they all fall into two main categories, magnetic stud detectors and electric stud finders.

The other day I needed x-rays taken of my teeth. Denise the dental-hygienist told me a secret she learned to prevent the gag reflex. Squeeze your thumbs. It worked. I told her it might be due to pressure points. Read more about it.